Heroism
by Bad Mum
Summary: Post-War AU. Voldemort has won, and what is left of the resistance is in hiding. Percy needs to keep himself alive for George's sake. But how long can he hold out? The result of a conversation at the Teachers' Lounge. Rated M for violence and torture and character death.


_This story resulted from an "I Never" challenge issued by respitechristopher to Lightblue Nymphadora at the Teachers' Lounge. Not only did she take up the challenge, but Wrexscar did too (read their stories, they're both excellent). That resulted in a conversation about torturing Weasleys, and in the spirit of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", I wrote this. _

_Post-War AU, and not related to anything else I've written. Trigger warnings - violence and torture. Don't read if those are trigger issues for you._

**Heroism**

It wasn't right that he was alive when so many of his family had died. He was the traitor, the blood traitor in the truest sense of the word, the one who had let his family down. But since he was alive, he needed to stay that way, for as long as he could, for the sake of those of his family who were left. For George in particular.

His parents had died in the battle, so had Charlie and Fred and Ginny. And Harry of course, the Boy Who Lived, killed by the Dark Lord himself nearly seventeen years too late. It would have been better, Percy thought grimly, if he had died as a baby, if the Dark Lord had won then. Then he – and his brothers and sister – would not remember a world where Voldemort did not rule. Things would have been peaceful, uneventful; and if they had lived in a society that was less than ideal, they would have had each other and their lives to live in a kind of freedom.

Bill and Fleur, George, Ron and Hermione, as well as Percy himself, had survived the battle, although it would have been better if Bill at least had not.

Hermione and Ron were safe. Hermione, ever the practical one, had set herself up with a Muggle escape route in case their resistance failed. She and Ron had taken the first available plane to Australia and were searching for her parents – or rather for Monica and Wendell Wilkins, who had no idea that they had a daughter, let alone that she was a witch. Hermione was bright enough to forge the necessary documents and set herself and Ron up as the Wilkins' daughter and son-in-law, though heaven only knew how Ron would fare living full-time as a Muggle. But they were safe, which was the important thing.

Bill had been dragged away alive at the end of the battle by Greyback, his body dumped in the smoking remains of The Burrow three days later. Fleur had already fled, and Percy thought it was just as well. The sight of what was left of Bill would probably have killed her in her already weakened state. She was safe with her family, for now at least. But Voldemort had a long memory, and if he found out that the widow of the man who had killed Bellatrix Lestrange was carrying his child, she would not be safe for long, even in France.

And George… George was the reason Percy himself was here, hiding in the attic of a broken-down shop in Knockturn Alley, of all places. It was far too close to the centre of things for Percy's liking, but he could get George no further from what remained of Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes. Here, if he stood on a chair, precariously balanced on the crooked floorboards, George could see the charred remains of what had been his and Fred's shop. He stood like that for hours, oblivious to Percy's pleas to come down, to eat, to discuss their options for escape. Percy knew that somewhere in his broken brain he truly believed that if he could see the shop, that things would still come right, that Fred would walk through the door with a smile on his face and a joke on his lips.

Fred had died, horribly, at the hands of Antonin Dolohov, and George had seen it. Percy believed that most of the damage to his mind had been done then, rather by Dolohov's curse hitting him squarely in the face just minutes later. Percy himself had dragged him unconscious from the castle, using reserves of physical strength he would never have believed he possessed, before getting far enough away that he could Apparate both of them to a cave in the hills near The Burrow that he remembered from childhood games and picnics. But George had slipped away when Percy had finally succumbed to exhaustion and slept, and Percy had found him, after five desperate, terrifying hours of searching, in the remains of the joke shop, carrying on a conversation with his own reflection in the window about new products and shop opening times.

He had had to stun George to get him away, and had brought him here to the attic of what had once been a very dubious apothecary's. Knockturn Alley felt paradoxically secure. Perhaps here they would be safe for a while from those searching for the remains of the Order of the Phoenix, Dumbledore's Army and the rest of those foolish enough to try to oppose the new regime. Percy had managed to contact Neville Longbottom and Seamus Finnegan, who were the masterminds of a new kind of underground, getting people out to Ireland, the Continent or even America. They were concentrating – rightly – on those worst wounded, and on the orphan children of the resistance, but Finnegan had promised Percy that if he could hold out for a week, that they would get him and George out of the country somehow.

A week had seemed like a lifetime to Percy, who hardly dared sleep in case George ran away again, but it was a lifeline, something to hope for.

And now, after six days, it seemed that they might make it after all. A stranger in the street had palmed a note to Percy, when he ventured out in heavy disguise to get food and water. "Tomorrow morning. Before dawn. Be ready." Seven hours, that was all. Seven hours.

It was dark, and Percy had managed to coax George down from his vantage point to eat something, but he was growing restless, and Percy judged it safest to let him climb back up when their scanty meal was done. It would not do for George to start shouting and call attention to themselves now. He mounted his chair, almost happily, and Percy allowed himself to doze for a little while.

He was woken by sounds from the shop below, and stood up quickly, cursing himself for dropping his guard. It was pitch dark, nowhere near the dawn. George had descended from his eyrie, and was asleep in the corner of the attic, twitching and muttering to himself as he slept. Percy gripped his wand and headed cautiously for the door. At the head of the narrow stairway leading to the attic, he turned and sealed the door with a charm; the last thing he wanted was for George to wake and follow him.

There were four of them, or four that he could see, congregated in the doorway of the shop. Percy recognised MacNair, Dolohov and – with a surge of revulsion when he remembered what had been done to Bill – Fenrir Greyback. The fourth was a small squat man whom he did not know. He gripped his wand more tightly. It seemed inevitable that he was going to die, but if he was, he would do his best to take at least one of these bastards with him. And, given the choice, it would be Greyback.

He descended the stairs a little further, his wand levelled, and managed to get a Stunner into the centre of the group of Death Eaters before they noticed his presence. The small man slumped to the floor with a grunt, and the three others turned as one towards him.

"Oh look," Dolohov sneered. "We found ourselves a Weasley. Rare birds these days." He turned to MacNair. "Want him Walden? Fenrir and I have a Weasley each in our collections already."

MacNair grinned and advanced on Percy, his wand raised. Percy's own wand was slick with sweat, and he felt beads of perspiration on his hairline. His glasses were fogging too. He took a deep breath to steady himself, pictured his father smiling at him, and began to send a stream of hexes and curses at the men before him. But they were too quick and too many for him. Greyback and Dolohov were advancing with MacNair now, and they grabbed his arms and pulled him from the stairs, kicking his legs from under him until he was sprawled at their feet. MacNair stamped hard on his wand hand, and he felt the bones shatter. He bit his lip hard. He would not cry out until he had to.

MacNair knelt before him, and put his face close to Percy's. "Too brave to scream, eh?" he said. "I'll make you scream, lad, before I've finished with you. I'll make you beg."

Percy shook his head and spat in MacNair's face, trying to roll out from under him and retrieve his wand with his uninjured hand. But MacNair grabbed his arms and straddled him as Dolohov kicked his wand into a corner. MacNair had his own wand out now, and began to tease it up and down the sides of Percy's face, opening long gashes from forehead to chin, and down onto Percy's neck. He moved down Percy's body, slashing open his jumper and shirt with his wand, and continuing his ministrations on chest and abdomen. Percy tasted blood as he fought to remain silent, and could not restrain a cry of agony as MacNair moved lower and lower.

"Not as brave as we thought we were, eh, Ministry man?" MacNair gloated, pulling himself to his feet and pointing his wand straight at Percy. The _Cruciatus _ curse was repeated again and again, Percy writhing on the floor at MacNair's booted feet and screaming until he was hoarse.

"Beg me," MacNair snarled. "Ask me, you little runt, and I might end it quickly." He kicked Percy hard in the ribs, and Percy felt them give as they broke.

He rolled over and spat blood before answering. "Never!" he gasped. "You haven't beaten me!"

The Death Eaters laughed at that, and Percy felt more kicks to his body. He curled into a ball to protect himself as well as he could, trying desperately to compose himself enough to summon his wand wordlessly to him. It was barely two yards away, if he concentrated hard enough…

But now, Greyback had grabbed his hair, pulling his head back painfully, and the fourth Death Eater, the one who had been Stunned, was stumbling across the room, wheezing heavily.

"Give me a turn, Greyback," he whined. "I owe him."

"Be my guest," laughed the werewolf, and dragged Percy round by his hair to face the fourth man, who was pulling something long and black from beneath his cloak.

"Nah, turn him round," he instructed. "And strip him."

Greyback dragged Percy round again, and MacNair waved his wand almost lazily to remove what was left of his clothing.

Naked and gasping, Percy waited for what was to come next, not knowing what to expect, only that it would be bad. He heard something slashing through the air behind him, then pain, agonising and excruciating as the whip hit his back, and was withdrawn, taking lumps of his flesh with it. The second strike sent him to his knees, the fourth had him lying prone on the floor, gripping his good hand into a fist and biting his lip through to keep himself from begging for respite. Above him, the three other Death Eaters were laughing and jeering, urging their comrade on.

They were all so caught up in what they were doing, that none of them noticed the door from the attic above being broken open, nor the feet descending the stairs. George was nearly in the room before any of them saw him, his face confused, his eyes questioning.

"Perce?" he asked worriedly. "What's going on? "Who are these people?"

Percy's sheer horror at the sight of his brother was worse than anything that had gone before, but the Death Eaters were delighted.

"Oh look," giggled Greyback, advancing on George with his hands extended, bloody nails reaching for his throat as George began to sense the danger and retreat from him. "Oh look, another plaything. My turn for some fun, I think."

"No!" Percy was not even aware that he had cried out, but he broke free from MacNair, who was holding him, and half crawled half threw himself into the corner where his discarded wand lay. "Not my brother, you bastards!" He levelled his wand at Greyback, who now had George by the throat. He could kill him now and have some kind of revenge. Or he could save George from the kind of torture he had endured and had still to endure. He moved the wand fractionally to the side.

"_Avada Kedavra!"_

George fell to the floor, and through a haze of tears, Percy saw the four Death Eaters advancing on him. It no longer mattered. He had paid his debt and saved his brother. He closed his eyes and waited for what was to come.


End file.
